Market View
Beyond MQLs: Reframing success in B2B marketing
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Produced by:
John Hills
Vice President of Marketing at Crowdcube
About John Hills
John Hills serves as the Vice President of Marketing at Crowdcube, an equity crowdfunding platform that facilitates connections between companies seeking investment and prospective investors. In his role, John oversees a dual-focused marketing strategy, aiming to attract and maintain a supply of companies that are appealing to potential investors while simultaneously marketing these opportunities to a diverse investor base. His responsibilities include coordinating with the commercial team to enhance the platform’s visibility and appeal, primarily across the UK and Europe, with his team operating out of London and Paris.
As marketing evolves, how are account-based marketing strategies impacting your measurement techniques?
Account-based marketing has really shifted our focus in how we track and measure success. As our partner companies grow, they tend to form larger decision-making teams, which means we have to interact with more people and understand their roles. We track engagements across these decision-making groups to refine our sales cycle and enhance customer experience. This approach not only makes our sales process smoother but also allows us to connect on a more personal level with our clients. It's about moving beyond simple sales and working on nurturing long-term relationships that benefit both sides.
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We track engagements across these decision-making groups to refine our sales cycle and enhance customer experience.
With your extensive experience, could you detail the key performance indicators (KPIs) your organisation prioritises?
Absolutely. We focus on several key indicators that help us effectively manage our performance in the marketplace. We mainly look at how well we attract companies that want to raise funds and how successfully we can convert interested investors into active ones. Our measures include the number of potential fundraising companies that engage with our platform and the actual investments made by new and existing investors. These indicators give us a clear picture of how well our market strategies are working and where we need to make adjustments.
Our KPIs are split into supply (companies looking to raise money) and demand (investors). On the supply side, the first KPI is marketing-influenced pipeline, which is a lagging metric. The second KPI is the win ratios of our pipeline, which helps us understand the quality of our pipeline. On the demand side, the main KPI we look at is the size of our active investor base and how engaged they are.
Can you describe some of the challenges in aligning marketing and sales within your organisation?
Aligning marketing and sales can be challenging because they operate on different time scales. Bridging the gap between marketing and sales means embedding marketing deeply within our commercial strategy. Marketing focuses on building interest and nurturing potential leads over time, aiming for long-term engagement. In contrast, our sales team is driven by more immediate quarterly targets. To tackle this, we align marketing with commercial goals by tying our KPIs directly to revenue and ensuring everything we do has a commercial justification.
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Bridging the gap between marketing and sales means embedding marketing deeply within our commercial strategy.
From a CEO's perspective, what metrics would you establish to measure marketing's impact on business growth?
From a CEO's point of view, the key is to directly connect marketing efforts with tangible business results. I would focus on metrics like the number of leads generated by marketing and how many of those leads turn into actual sales. These metrics are crucial for understanding how well our marketing is supporting business growth and revenue. It's about seeing the direct impact of marketing on our sales pipeline and ensuring that our marketing initiatives lead to real financial benefits.
We work closely with our finance team to ensure that we always have a number we can back up. We use various metrics to measure brand sentiment and impact, such as benchmarking against competitors, analysing follower demographics, and monitoring sentiment in tier-one media publications.
Looking forward, what trends do you foresee shaping the collaboration between sales and marketing?
The lines between sales and marketing are blurring, with marketing increasingly taking on responsibilities that were traditionally managed by sales. This includes overseeing the initial stages of customer engagement and demand generation. By shifting some responsibilities from sales to marketing, we can ensure a more cohesive strategy that aligns initial customer interest with ultimate sales conversions. This helps both departments work more synergistically, improving efficiency and outcomes across the board.
One trend is the idea of SDRs reporting into marketing, creating a more integrated approach and better results. Another trend is the rise of the "taste marketer" over the analytical marketer, as AI supplants much of the science behind marketing. The re-emergence of brands and their importance to the commercial outcome of a business is another trend. Lastly, the rise of B2B influencers, with 93% of B2B marketers planning to increase their work in this area, is a growing trend.
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By monitoring interactions such as visits to a pitch page, we can predict investment intentions and tailor communications.
How is your organisation leveraging data and technology to enhance your marketing strategies?
We're heavily invested in using data and technology to guide our marketing efforts. By monitoring interactions such as visits to a pitch page, we can predict investment intentions and tailor communications. This focused approach allows us to engage potential investors more effectively by providing them with relevant and appealing information at the right time. Our strategies are built around this data-driven insight, maximising the impact and efficiency of our marketing campaigns.
Additionally, we leverage Gen AI to analyse things more efficiently and in ways that would have taken us much longer before. One way we use it is by analysing qualitative interviews with our investor base, grouping key themes based on demographics or investor types. This enables us to make our marketing more relevant and appealing by using language that resonates with our customers in our emails and on our website.
About Crowdcube
Crowdcube is Europe’s largest private market investment platform Founded with the vision to democratise investment opportunities, Crowdcube enables startups and growth-stage companies to raise capital directly from individual investors. This platform serves as a bridge, connecting a vibrant community of investors with innovative companies seeking funding. Crowdcube empowers individuals to invest in the businesses they believe in, thereby fostering a culture of engagement and support for the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
About 6sense
6sense is on a mission to revolutionise the way B2B organisations create revenue by predicting customers most likely to buy and recommending the best course of action to engage anonymous buying teams. 6sense Revenue AI is the only sales and marketing platform to unlock the ability to create, manage and convert high-quality pipeline to revenue. Customers report 2X increases in average contract value, 4X increases in win rate and 20-40% reduction in time to close deals. Know everything, do anything, with 6sense.
